Lee Glendon Supports Campaign to Save the Karten Centre in Crowthorne

12.31.37pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 30th Apr 2005

Lee Glendon talks with Candy, a blind student, who said that her life was being transformed by the Karten Centre

Located in the Ravenswood village settlement, the Karten CTEC centre specialises in teaching people with varying degrees of learning difficulties or disabilities who would be unable to attend a mainstream college. The centre is facing closure due to an end of funding support from the Learning & Skills Council and current donations are inadequate to keep the Centre going beyond July this year.

Lee Glendon was invited by students and volunteers to see the work of the centre on 27th April. Lee commented:

"I was deeply impressed by the strength of common feeling amongst students and volunteers at the Centre. Karten provides these students with an excellent learning environment enabling those with disabilities to build their skills and earn a living for themselves and their families - as importantly the Centre helps build the confidence of students within a highly supportive environment. The students are learning skills they would otherwise struggle to learn in mainstream colleges at a pace that suits them and with excellent teachers and support volunteers. The Karten Centre provides a unique service for our community and we must do everything we can to help provide a sustained funding stream for the centre.

A number of students also wanted to point out to me that the Government's "tough stance" on Incapacity Benefit was very unfair on disabled people as most want to learn skills and earn a living and closing the Karten Centre would remove the ability for disabled students to live independently and make a contribution. The Lib Dems are promising to review Incapacity Benefit to make it more flexible to support the needs of disabled people who cannot conform to normal working patterns but who would like to work without being worse off than staying on Incapacity Benefit."

Note: Anyone who would like to help the Karten Centre either by volunteering or providing financial assistance should take the following action:

Contact: John Athey

The Karten CTEC Centre, Nine Mile Ride, Crowthorne, Berkshire, RG45 6BQ.

Telephone: 01344 755586

For donations cheques should be made payable to: The Karten CTEC Centre.